'Selective Memory' asks many questions
By Shari Kaplan
If the exhibit at the Los Gatos Museum of Art and Natural History gives visitors the uncanny feeling of walking amid the fragments of a dream, it's because many of artist Eduardo Smissen's pieces have a surrealistic flair evoking interpretation as the images a sleeper shares when describing a dream.
In Selective Memory, which runs through July 30, the native Los Angeleno uses acrylic paints, miscellaneous "found objects" and other materials to craft several dozen unusual works of art: most are three-dimensional pieces; some are paintings. A series of six sepia-toned photographs are also part of the exhibition.
"I sometimes see the things I make as stories, or as moments in time. They are my reflections of divine chuckles or the frustrated stutter," Smissen explains in his artist's statement. "Mystery has always been a source for my work, from the long shadows of film noir to the burning giraffes of surrealism.
"I use my life experience as a lens to focus my vision on areas I feel should be looked at, and pose questions I feel should be considered," he continues.
His piece, "Terrorist's Traveling Altar," appears to proffer the question: just how far do extremists go in the name of religion? Inside one-half of an open suitcase sits an alarm clock attached to a labyrinth of circuits and wires attached to eight sticks of dynamite. Inside the other half of the suitcase is a pair of red candles and the image of a religious icon surrounded by smoke and fire.
With "Container for Last Laughs," Smissen has taken a large, hollow gourd, painted the face of a man who is either laughing or yelling and mounted the gourd in front of a mirror. The gourd's open end is deftly carved to resemble an open mouth, complete with red lips and rows of teeth that look startlingly real.
In "Spell Check," Smissen incorporates an old, green-keyed manual typewriter, a doll's arms and dozens of stacked pencils, surrounding a fictional letter to the surrealistic German poet Max Aub. Smissen writes half in Spanish and half in English, perhaps in connection with his Hispanic heritage. He signs his missive "Ecuador Smidgen," which, explains museum curator Catherine Politopoulous, is how Smissen says his name is always "corrected" by the computer spellcheck function.
"Anchor Woman" examines the role of TV news anchor people and the preponderance of disasters they report. In this case, the "report" comes from a raven-haired beauty who looks more like Bizet's Carmen than a reporter. Helpless people flail about her tresses, while floods, fires and storms rage in the dark landscape behind her. Her earring is a TV set, while at the corner of her eye, almost unnoticeable at first, is a tiny skull tattoo--a memento mori, perhaps?
In Smissen's art, every piece expounds questions, metaphors and interpretations.
The Los Gatos Museum of Art and Natural History is at 4 Tait Ave. Hours are noon to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
